By Jim Ellis — Monday, October 12, 2026
Early Voting
Voting is already underway in 15 states, and initial reports generally align with polling that suggests a clear Democratic Party advantage in the 2026 midterm elections.
Historically, early vote performance has been a useful indicator of the final result: when a party exceeds its previous early voting performance in a like election it is a good sign that the individual party will do well when all votes are counted.
As early voting becomes more widespread around the country, however, both in person and by mail, the predictive early vote value may be diminishing. The Virginia 2025 statewide elections demonstrated this clearly. Early voting showed improved Republican performance, yet the final outcome was a Democratic landslide.
Regarding the 2026 election, only six of the fifteen earliest voting states publish the partisan division of the returned ballots. Ironically, the only state where Republicans are currently exceeding their 2022 early vote share is California, one of the party’s weakest states. There, Republicans account for 31.8 percent of recorded early ballots, compared to 27.5 percent in 2022.
These figures are extremely preliminary, and totals will shift substantially as more ballots are returned. In nine of the 15 early voting states, the process has only begun, so current numbers remain very low.
Because Wyoming did not publish partisan early vote data in 2022, only six states allow a direct comparison between 2022 and 2026: Arizona, California, Maine, Nebraska, New Mexico, and South Dakota. The remaining early voting states: Illinois, Indiana, Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Vermont, and Virginia, do not register voters by party and therefore cannot report partisan early vote totals.
Among these early voting states, those with the earliest calendars, Illinois, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Virginia, began accepting ballots during the Sept. 18-24 period.
The others: Arizona, California, Indiana, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, and Wyoming, opened their early vote windows between the October 4-7 period. Because voting has only recently begun in these latter states, it is too early to draw meaningful conclusions about how early voting for them will ultimately unfold.
Mail ballot participation also varies significantly. Three states, Arizona, California, and Montana, send ballots to all voters and rely almost exclusively on mail voting. Among states where voters must proactively request a mail ballot, only three currently show increases compared to the 2022 midterm: Illinois (+17.8%), Vermont (plus-5.8 percent), and Virginia (plus-18.0 percent).
In the remaining states, mail ballot applications are down, most dramatically in South Dakota, where requests are 69 percent lower than in 2022. All states still have substantial time left in their application windows, however. Minnesota, Montana, and Vermont accept applications until the day before the election (Nov. 2), while the others included in this report close their request periods between Oct. 14 (New Mexico) and Oct. 30 (Illinois).
Once the mail ballot application process closes, voters may still cast ballots early in person, where offered, or vote on Election Day.
Across these 15 states, early vote participation varies widely. In South Dakota, only 22.9 percent of the total 2022 vote was cast early, compared to 63.1 percent in Wyoming. Arizona, California, and Montana see the overwhelming majority of ballots cast by mail.
With 47 states offering some form of early voting, a long voting period remains ahead. A clearer picture of the overall early vote trends will emerge toward the end of the month.